Eyal Weizman on Humanitarian Violence at the LRBookshop

How is it that military and political intervention came to acquire a new “humanitarian” acceptability and legality in recent years? In his new book, The Least of all Possible Evils: Humanitarian Violence from Arendt to Gaza, Eyal Weizman explores the development of the principle of the “lesser evil”—the acceptability of pursuing one exceptional course of action in order to prevent a greater injustice – in three key transformations of the problem: the defining intervention of Médecins Sans Frontières in mid-1980s Ethiopia; the separation wall in Israel-Palestine; and international and human rights law in Bosnia, Gaza and Iraq.

He’ll be discussing the book with Paul Gilroy, Professor of Social History at the LSE, who has said, “Eyal Weizman’s work has become an indispensable source of both insight and guidance in these difficult times. He understands the evolving dynamics of war and sovereignty better than anyone.”

Eyal Weizman is Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, author of Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation, and co-editor of A Civilian Occupation.